Yesterday's progress:



I told him to quit begging at the table. He backed up. He thinks I can't figure out what he's up to. I'm onto him, oh yes, I'm onto his little plot!



Last night, I suffered from Knitting ADHD. I got some stuff done on the purse though. My Dad phoned and they've moved the Birthday dinner to Mother's Day brunch so I have more time. I think my Mother is getting ripped off. She should have two days. One to celebrate her life and one to celebrate the fact that she gave birth(2)/adopted(3) five children and didn't kill us.



As Mother's Day is soon, I began to think about how my life culminated in bringing me to this point and have I become ordinary? Is there really such a thing? What am I going to pass on to my daughter? I hope it's that she should not decide any one path is the only one she should be on and that she cannot chose to do something else. My resume reads like a path of stops, starts and confusion.
I know how to take food orders and bring them out without dumping them on someone's lap. I know how to mix the top twenty most requested drinks and shooters, I know how to carry a tray full of empties (very carefully and straight). I know how to stock a shelf and cross-check a packing slip. I know how to rent out movies and balance a till. I know how to measure and build pallets and crates with an industrial air nailer and air stapler. I know how to use a chop saw, bandsaw and a notcher. I can strap up a load with the best of them. I know how to run a 1x4 stacker and I can run (and unjam) a Stetson Ross hydraulic planer at a rate of 19,900 - 2x4 - 92 5/8" board feet per hour. I can use a breakdown and spin boards on sets of moving chains. I can use a impact wrench to change saws and knives inside a Mark II, a Mark III, a V-head and a DDM. I can sharpen the above mentioned knives and add babbit to them to make them fit in the heads properly. I have driven from my home town to B.C. by myself and with friends. I have Chaired and Co-chaired on the Health and Safety committee at the sawmill. I have been involved with the union (IWA Canada local #2694) and gone to conferences in Saskatoon (beautiful city), North Bay (nice), Vancouver (big), and Thunder Bay (alright). I helped negotiate the contract the mill is currently under. I have been to visit my family by marriage in Newfoundland and stood on the eastern most point of North America (Cape Spear). Visit Newfoundland if you get the chance. You won't regret it. I have partied on George Street and shopped in Vancouver's biggest mall. I went to Chattanooga, TN again by myself to visit my sister for her birthday.
I can cook a mean dinner and keep a reasonably clean (hate that part) house. I can take care of three children under three without pulling all of my hair out. I can knit and I want to learn how to spin. I can sew on buttons and make a seam stay together (note that the words nice and straight were not added to that). I can get house plants to grow and have gotten some outdoor plants to survive. I have treated myself with and without respect. Learning to maintian self respect was harder than cracking the nut on the Mark II by hand (I nearly blew out every muscle in my arms, shoulders and back doing that)! As I'm writing this, I'm almost thinking maybe I'm a little weird. Good weird though.
I know I want to pass on the ability to try everything no matter how physically difficult and most important, I want her to respect herself and expect others to as well (especially boys) regardless of what she can do. I want her to know that being a woman doesn't mean that she has to only do the things women traditionally did or only things that men traditionally did. She can do both and she should keep up the fight for women (and men) to be able to choose to do either or both if they want to. She should be smart and show it without being mean about it. She should expect her boyfriend to wait until she is ready and if he says stupid crap like; "If you loved me you would..." she should have the strength and self-esteem to tell him to f--- off because he's a shmuck who just wants a quick roll with an available body.
In long, (this hasn't been a short) I want it all for all of us. My husband did not marry a shrinking violet. He loves his roaring lioness!
Here's to the lioness in all of us! [clunk, (coffee cup) slurp)